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15 February 2007

Cardamon Chocolate Chunk Cookies

It's rare the chocolate chip cookie puts on a new outfit which doesn't suit him. He is as basic a flavor profile, and wonderful a taste memory, as Hershey's chocolate Kiss, an apple plucked from the tree in Autumn's crisp air, or icy fresh-squeezed lemonade in July.

But every once and a while it's time to add something silky and bright to the chocolate chip cookie's closet. Maybe not a fabric you'd want to don every day, but a new swooshy thang for the odd Friday night, whilst you're, let's say, painting the town hot pink.

Because I've worked at a fair number of restaurants fancy and non-American, I copy a standard chocolate
chip cookie recipe into my pocket notebooks for the odd day I want to add a sweet sompin' to staff meal. The only change in the basic base cookie dough is I increase the brown sugar ratio for a chewier, softer cookie. A trick I learned at Citizen Cake where Elizabeth Falkner is known to replace white sugar with its molasses-tinged cousin, mostly because she loves it so much.

As EF is known for her leanings towards brown sugar, I've been known to leave my mark with cardamon laced desserts. Cardamon's smoky sharpness can get right in the ring with most dark chocolate. The spice is powerful, especially when you have the seeds in your midst, are grinding them yourself, or have the time to pull them out of the pods. Pop one in your mouth-- it's strong properties make it the best breath freshener!

I began making these cookies when I was at Aziza years ago, for the odd fun thing to send to favorite people who came in and were "forced" to eat special tidbits not appearing on the menu. The first night I served them under the radar, they were sent out freshly baked alongside small cups of hot chocolate.

Holly, a friend of my girlfriend at the time, attributes these cookies to her first impression of liking
chocolate. She was so obsessed, she would beg me to make them every time she came into Aziza thereafter. Soon enough I knew to keep the batter on hand.

When I went back to Aziza recently I knew what my debut chocolate dessert would be. Hot cocoa with tiny homemade marshmallows, three miniature cardamon chocolate chunk cookies warmed to order and cocoa nib ice cream. And I named it, "Holly's Special Dessert."

I'm not going to spell out the method and all that, because these are chocolate chip cookies with red high heel's is all. Mix batter the way the Nestle's package tells you to.

But here are some tips:

*Chop the dark chocolate with a serrated knife. You want a few big pieces, but if you're using Scharffen Berger or Valrhona the flavour will be very strong and you may lose the overall effect with a bite that's only chocolate. Cookies with "too big" chunks of chocolate will also have a harder time rising.

*Turn the pan around midway through the baking time. All ovens have hot spots-- your end result will be more evenly baked if you set two short timers instead of one long one.

*I like salt's bold character to come through, if you don't, decrease the salt, or use a different kind.

*Grinding cardamon right before you use it will impart a bigger bang. For store bought ground you may want to increase the amount for equal effect.

*Cocoa Nibs are all the rage now. But if you can't find them, it's no big deal. I like to have a chocolate component that's not chocolate itself. I like the texture of cocoa nibs. The flavor is definitely chocolate, but neither sweet nor melty.

*These cookies are best baked on parchment rather than a buttered baking pan. Because there's nothing in the chocolate to keep it from burning, as there is in a "chocolate chip," (soy lecithin mainly) the chocolate in the cookie which comes into contact with the searing heat of it's surroundings will melt and then want to burn. (Remember, chocolate melts at your mouth's temperature...)

Comments

A Shuna recipe to serve as a wonderful surprise to me on this Thursday morning (or the extension of Wednesday night, depending on who you ask). I look forward to making this lovely variation on the classic cookie as soon as this barrage of school related activity is over, or perhaps at some point in between to serve as a means of procrastination.

Yummy! Cardamom is my favorite spice. I chew it as a breath freshener, and have a special (tiny) mortar and pestle I use just for grinding it - keeping those other stronger spices for the coffee grinder.

Yes indeed, ALL ovens have hot spots. As well, cold spots and mystery spots. When I am new to an oven I bake cookies in it-- cookies show all these areas the best. Generally convection ovens have their hot spot in the top or the bottom, it depends on where most of the hot wind settles...

you only want the actual seeds in the cookie, not the sheath or the papery binding that keeps the seeds together in the pod. If this was merely an infusion you could have all of this, like for, let's say, ice cream or syrup...

And anyway, eggbeater is a dork sometimes too, so you're in great company!

I love cardamom and use it frequently. I grind it with my coffee beans and use a press or put some ground with my espresso and a twist of lemon. Now chocolate cookies... I'm salivating for cookies and coffee. Cardamom and lemon are a natural. Try lemon poppy seed cardamom muffins.... ooh!

My mother in law turned me on to chili chocolate powder from Penzy Spices and I have put about 1/2 tsp. in my last batch of cc cookies and they were great! The spice doesn't hit you right away but after you swallow it's really nice!